


The Herbology Professor

by worldstealers



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: Adultery, Care of Magical Creatures, F/M, Herbology, Hogwarts, Potions, Romance, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-22 22:50:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18537073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/worldstealers/pseuds/worldstealers
Summary: This story was written for World Stealers : A Fan Fiction podcast, read and performed in two episodes. Journey with us to Hogwarts, years after the Second Wizarding War, where a different kind of fight is being waged. A fight for... romance. Written by Cait Moldenhauer.It's Christmas time at Hogwarts but Celestina MaCallagan, Potions Master, is far from cheery. For one thing she seems to be allergic to her own dungeons; and for another, she's in love with a married man. Will Celestina overcome her heartache? Will she find a home at Hogwarts? And, most importantly, will she ever stop sneezing???





	The Herbology Professor

Even with Madame Glossy’s Mold Extractor applied vigorously over the summer break, the dungeons always made Celestina sneeze. Just the other day, she found a note, flung from a student’s desk with a crude drawing of her floating down a river of what looked like green greasy snot. Underneath, it read Professor McAllergen. The owl sent home to Colin Finnisten’s did mention that it was a clever association for a second year, as her name was Professor McCallagan, and the movement of her flailing arms in the snot was equally impressive. If only he would focus that energy on his potions assignments. 

She guessed it was normal for new professors to have some level of hazing from the students. Other than a few Ravenclaws who were quick to correct her in the absence of their last professor, the students of Hogwarts were sweet to her. Anyway, she was half way through her first year as the new Potions Professor and no one had been set on fire or covered in boils. 

“A-choo!” This time the force of her sneeze knocked over a bowl of crushed Chizpurfle Carapace. This reminded her of another element she hated abut the dungeons. It was impossible to get anything out of the cracks in the stone floor. Celestina grimaced down at the viridescent powder that seeped into the damp floors. Like an unclean cauldron, each crack was a reaction waiting to happen. 

While she dreaded the idea, it indeed seemed time to head to the hospital wing. Allergies in mid-winter were unlikely, even with the muggy character of her classroom. Unless Headmistress McGonegall agreed to move potions to different floor, Celestina would have to find a solution to her rioting nose. 

It was just that Madam Longbottom really truly, and most definitely seemed to hate her. Celestina could not imagine a specific moment where this contempt would have sparked, as she had only interacted with Hannah Longbottom during the Teacher’s Banquet and in the hallways. However, it was as if the Matron of Hogwarts neck grew longer in the throat whenever Celestina was in the room, giving Hannah Longbottom a tiny window of view from the bridge of her nose, all the way down to anyplace Celestina happened to be standing. 

Truthfully, Celestina did have some small idea as to why Hannah could possibly hate her. As she passed underneath the stone trellises leading the way to the hospital wing, as the bright blue glow of snow reflected into the passage, Celestina moved her lips along to a practiced response, “Of course not. We just have to work together often. Our subjects naturally overlap.” 

A few students whipped around the corner, robes flicking behind them, then stopped just short of colliding with her. 

“You better be careful! Peeves is known to cover the halls in ice this time of year.” The students looked at her, angsty and miffed at being reprimanded, then sulked away. This new job had a way of reminding her daily what a monster she was in her fifth year, and her sixth. Well, then there was her seventh. She thought briefly to send an owl to her mother later. 

As she entered the Hospital Wing, the smell inside cleared her nostrils almost completely. It was strong and barely hidden. Madam Longbottom was sitting at her large wooden desk, turned away from the door. She was flicking her wand to guide clean gauze into a jug of antidote that Celestina had brewed and sent up earlier in the year. 

“Are ye bleedin’” Hannah’s voice was without inflection and losing some of it’s consonants. 

“No, just a sneeze actually, but it doesn’t seem to want to go, and I…” Celestina trailed off as Hannah slowly turned around, placing her wand in the desk drawer. 

“Professor McCallagan.” The coldness Celestina had expected was there, possibly harsher that usual. 

“I believe I’m allergic to something in the dungeons.” She figured being direct was best. Hannah wasn’t sparing any courtesy. 

“Inconvenient.” Hannah stood up slowly, in no hurry for her patient, and walked to a giant wooden cupboard with hundreds of small square drawers. The labels were worn down to blank tawny slips of paper. 

Hannah pulled at a few knobs, glanced inside, huffed, then slammed them closed. “Bloody Pompfrey.” She murmured, then opened one over her head, pulling the drawer all the way out and cradling it to look inside. It was empty. “I’ll need Puffapod nectar, which will do ya, but I’m plum out at the moment.”

“I suppose I won’t need it until after the winter break.” Celestina wiped her nose with her lavender handkerchief. She realized she’d been holding it since her grand sneeze at her lab table, and shoved it back in the pocket of her teacher’s robes. 

“Fine, then.” Hannah said. She returned to her desk and pulled out her wand. She held it still, as if to say she couldn’t go on working until her untreated patient left. Which Celestina promptly did. 

In the hallway, Celestina’s heart was pounding and she didn’t notice at first, but she realized must have been holding her breath as well. Hannah had behaved the same, if a little more gruff, but not out of the ordinary. Yet, the buzz of anxiety between them was stronger today. 

Against her better judgement and the freezing cold outside, Celestina hurried out through the entrance hall and out on to the grounds. The path to the greenhouse was a bit icy, so she stepped lightly in the whipping wind that lifted the snow against her. Once the iron filagreed glass door to Greenhouse Four was shut, she shook off her robes, leaving little white hills at her feet. 

“Professor McCallagan, you’re a sun flare in this storm. Are you alright?” Arron’s three hooves tapped on the wooden planked floor as he turned to look at her. The centaur’s huge form didn’t entirely fit in the crowded greenhouse, but he made due by crouching and pushing aside the low hanging vines as he walked towards her. Most of his kind was distant and mistrusting of wizards, but not Arron, half-raised on the grounds by Hagrid after being abandoned by the colony for having a malformed leg. His rearing granted him the habit of moving very close in conversation, glaring precisely with his large blue eyes. 

Arron did exactly that, trotting to inches away from Celestina’s face, sweet enough to accompany his stare with a grin. 

“Ah, yes. The fear is mutual. And anyway not all that important to the stars.” Arron looked behind him to the man standing in a semi circle of pots sprouting Fluxweed. Celestina did not follow his line of sight, not wanting to be read any further.

“Thank you for the mushrooms, Professor. Hagrid does love them in his game pies.” Arron voiced behind him, then exited gracefully. 

“Normally, I canna catch much he’s sayin, but you do look flustered, Cellie. You alright?”

“Neville, I’m almost positive she knows.”

“Wha?” Neville Longbottom put down the leather bound notebook he was noting the sprouts in. 

“I went to see her about all the sneezing and, my goodness those dungeons are retched, you know,” Neville nodded and moved closer, intent on listening to her, “I just thought she could help. But she… I mean she didn’t say anything, but I just… I really think she knows.”

Neville took her hands to calm her, then pulled them away, looking at the state of them, covered in soil and ink. “Sorry,” he mumbled then walked to dip them in a basin.

Celestina laughed nervously, “It’s alright. You know I don’t mind. And I’m sorry to be thinking this way it’s just…”

He looked up and flicked water from his long fingertips. As he walked back over, she noticed again as she had hundreds of times since meeting at that Fall, how tall he was. Like a giant to a house elf, she thought. 

“I dinna want to say so, but I think you’re right.” He slumped at the admission, “I never thought this would’ve happened.”

“Me neither. And I feel wrong not saying anything.” She put a hand on the thick knitted sweater he wore, part for comfort and because she couldn’t help it. 

“I just feel like a fool. All my friends, they’ve all got marriages that work, ya know? Everyone of us, paired up and after what we’d been through you’d think that it was meant for. I just look at Ron and Hermione, Harry and Ginny, and I’m-“

“Maybe you should stop comparing yourself to them. That was decades ago. You’re not Harry Potter. She’s short and a bit of a gripe, if you ask me.”

Neville pinched up, not happy with her response, “‘Arry is a hero and my best mate.”

Celestina crossed her arms, “You are also a hero, Neville, who went through the same bout as the rest of them, so there’s nothing to live up to. Anyway, that’s not what we’re talking about is it?” She sighed, turning to a vine that was reaching slowly to grab a lock from her bun and batting it away. “Not every marriage has to work out. We’re English wizards, we invented divorce before that Muggle king got to it.”

“Divorce?” This time Neville turned away from her completely. 

“I only said it, because you won’t.” She reached out again for him, thinking about running her hands under his arms and across the front of him, but stopped. That could get them in more trouble than they needed right now. She felt the distance building between them because of what he refused to admit. 

“That was why she applied for the Matron job, to avoid this. I thought that being closer would bring us back together.” He was speaking to the greenery more than to her. 

“Has it?” She said, truly wondering if they shared the moments she agonized over in her own quarters. Nights when she knew they had been getting along. Nights where it seemed like Neville would give it another go to be the good man he was. He always came back to her, though. Rescinding on his promises to be honorable in the face of what his marriage to Hannah actually was. 

“No. All it’s done is show how far away Hogwarts is from the Leaky Cauldron.” He sat on a small wood stool, warped from age, his legs bent almost up to his ears. At least he was facing her now. 

“Good thing she brought the Cauldron’s fire whiskey with her.” Celestina grumbled, remembering the pungent smell of it in the hospital wing. 

Neville shot a look up at her, “No. She isn’t.”

Before Celestina could attest to his worries, the iron door slowly opened yet again. A small head popped in with a poof of unwashed curly hair. 

“Professor Longbottom? Oh! Professor McCallagan, um um, I was supposed ta get sumthing for Madam Longbottom, she said ah… Puff Somthing. Oh no I forgot, I’m sorry, I can run back!”

“Come in. It’s too cold out for you to be running around the grounds alone.” Celestina turned to Neville, “It’s for Puffapod nectar. For me, I’m guessing.” 

Neville jumped up and looped to the back of the greenhouse, behind a wall of moving grasping bushes. 

Celestina looked down at the boy. First year, barely up to the Herbology Professor’s hip. The thought of his tousled hair adjacent Professor Longbottom’s pockets, reminded her of something. 

“Collin, right?” The nervous boy nodded as she continued, “You’ve never been in Greenhouse Four, right? Too dangerous for first years?” He nodded again, putting his hands in his pocket, as if to seem smaller. 

She crouched down, elbows on her knees to speak to him, “Sneak over to that small tree and see if you can get a branch of it.” He looked at where she pointed, eyes wide and uncertain. 

“It’s a bowtruckle tree. They make loyal pets if you’re sweet to them, and come in handy as well.” Timidly, he walked over, glancing back. She kept an eye out for the wayward Herbology Professor to return. Sure enough, Colin had snapped off a new friend and shoved it into his robe in an instant and returned to her. “If anyone asks, you found it in your trunk in the dorms, ok? I’ll cover for you.” He nodded, a smile widened on his tiny face. 

Celestina stood up quickly as the vine wall rustled with Neville’s return. He was carrying a large pot with a spotted egg-shaped plant in the center. 

“I’m sure Colin could have easily carried that back through the snow, then.” She raised an eyebrow to Neville. “It’s fine I’ll go with him.” The pot floated out of Neville’s hands towards her and she grabbed the boys hand. 

“Cellie… uh, Professor McCallagan. When should we-“

“I just need a new jar of crushed Chizpurfle Carapace. Maybe send a 7th year with it.” She finished for him. 

“Right.” He said, walking over to hold the door open for them. Had there been a way to read his thoughts, she would’ve tried. But she was never very good at Legilimency.

 

Celestina stumbled over a rock, missing it past puffy watery eyes. Her yelp echoed down the hallway. Through her aching knee, she replayed the conversation again that she overheard in the faculty room the day before.

“Never found someone to end up with, I know she must be desperate, maybe even deranged.”

But, Celestina had found someone. She had loved her husband, Henry. Their first year in school ended with the Battle Of Hogwarts. Madam Hooch hid them both in a broom closet, where they clutched each other, listening to the castle fall apart around them, thinking they would die together there. 

When they returned the next year, there was a sense of safety between them together that couldn’t be broken. It stayed year after year. Best friends to lovers to family. After school, Henry became an Auror. She knew it was his instinct to pay off the debt of protection they were both given. It made Celestina so incredibly proud. And when he was killed hunting down one of the last bands of rouge werewolves, who were still stuck in their loyalty to the Dark Days, she shut off her heart only to hold the memory of Henry. 

Henry always admired Neville, but she wondered what he would have thought of her secret. A feeling of shame hit her at this thought. More tears followed and Celestina pushed herself off the cold floor to try and shake them off. 

She turned into the boat house. Mostly unused except for bringing in first years, it seem like a peaceful place to let everything out, then pick herself back up again and get on with life. At least she hoped.

“Even Neville told me that she’s constantly pestering him to set her up with someone. Says he wouldn’t be around her so much if they didn’t have to work with the students together. She even comes in to bother me with fake illnesses, make small talk. I mean, doesn’t she have a single friend?”

Celestina had no fantasy that Hannah had pleasant thoughts of her. She was filling a teapot in the kitchen annex, around the corner from upholstered booths where teachers wrote lesson plans, nap, or held the occasional one-on-one meeting with fellows. Celestina was out of sight, but not earshot of Hannah, who did nothing but speak poorly of her to Professor Levy. 

On any other day, Celestina would laugh. Over the last few months, Hannah had become almost hostile. Unfriendly and cruel, to both Celestina and Neville. If anything it gave hope to Celestina that maybe Neville had finally said something to his wife about them. 

But a few nights before Neville had clarified that this wasn’t at all the reason for Hannah’s animosity. This was the other conversation cycling through Celestina’s head that kept her tears out front. Somehow she made it through her classes and suffered little sleep, but had managed to get through the shock of what he’d told her. Maybe it was the shock that helped numb her. 

But now it was the first day of winter break. All the children had left, and much of the teachers, going home to their families. One look at the giant Christmas tree in the Great Hall and she knew it would be far too long this year without distraction. She turned away from breakfast with the few people left, headed straight down to boathouse to feel the weight of her reality.

When she reached it, she sat on a bench, looking down at the ice blue of the water cradling the thin wooden boats. It rippled slowly, making no sound. All she could hear was her own breathing, and the occasionally sniffle. Pathetic was how she felt. Betrayed. Delusional. Even while she fought it, Neville’s words returned to her thoughts. 

“She’s pregnant.” He said. She remembered seeing petals of goosegrass flowers still clinging to his sleeves from the day. Celestina stared at them while he spoke, afraid to look him in the face. 

“I wanted to tell her. I know I told you I would. She was sick for a few days, and I felt it was unfair to do it then, but when she was better, I asked her if we could talk. And she told me before I could start.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his corduroys and slouched. “I do think she knew all along. You were right. I wouldn’a thought until after she told me about … well the baby.” He paused again, swallowing down his own grief. “She said, ‘now you have an excuse to stay.’”

Celestina couldn’t be angry with Hannah anymore. They understood each other in a way, never really getting the man they loved completely. Hannah showed that despite everything, she wasn’t a monster, just pining for something that used to be there.

But without the anger to hold onto Celestina had nothing but walloping fat tears. She felt equally sorry for the both of them, even though it seemed like Hannah had won the prize. 

She buried her face in her hands, bunching up her robe to gather the puddle pouring from her face. Alone, she let out a gasp of misery, feeling as if there were nothing left to wake up for. Nothing left for her to continue her walk back to her empty bedroom. 

She started to feel weak from the crying, thinking the bench might be a nice place to lie down. She could spend the day near the cold water, maybe longer. It was a cold that matched how she felt inside. As she lifted her head from her hands, to stretch out across the bench, she felt a tug at her shoulder. 

Celestina jerked around, surpised. She found herself looking directly into small beady black eyes. Underneath, a wide mouth with sharp glistening teeth widened and shrieked at her. Crawls went for her neck, but she quickly jumped up. Shaking with adrenaline, she pulled the creature off her back. It hit the floor with a crack and yelled in pain. In a panic she kicked it, launching it off into the water, where it gurgled and screamed, then crawled its way to the edge. Once it lifted itself out, she was prepared with wand in hand.

It petrified instantly with a flick of her wrist and slapped hard against the dock. She stepped closer to it slowly, noticing the coat of grey fur and large hands tipped with pointed nails. She realized what it was immediately. A Porgebin. Nasty little animal that loved cold and dark places. 

She’d forgotten much of her studies in Magical Creatures years ago, but vividly remembered the painted figure drawing of the Porgebin, razor sharp teeth and all. She couldn’t forget because the idea of it terrified her at the time. After all, the main ingredient in a Porgebin diet is human flesh. They lulled their prey by affecting feelings of sadness and despair. Just when their victim had given up on living, they sink their tiny teeth into them and chew as much as they can until the prey realizes what is happening through the cloud of their deep depression. 

“Could Stupefy ‘em if yer want. But I find just a kick to their ‘eads does the trick fine.” It was almost as if Professor Hagrid’s voice was booming out of her memory and into the empty room. 

She leaned over the furry body on the granite, wondering if she should bring it straight to McGonagal, as it was certainly a threat to the children, or take it to Hagrid’s old stone house on the grounds. He’d know what to do, certainly, but in his old age, she questioned if his judgement would steer him towards getting rid of the creature or keeping it as yet another creepy pet. 

It blinked and looked over, drooling at the sight of her. She shivered and stupefied it again, just in case. Probably best for the Head Mistress. 

She flicked her wand, conjuring a trunk around it with a large padlock. For a moment, she thought to escort it, but instead evoked a small note detailing to McGonagal the contents, then levitated it out the door and directed it on the path to the Head Mistresses’ office. It would arrive safely, absent of her flustered face, runny nose, and the suggestion that she was the thing’s prey shrinking in despair to be feasted on. Having a heart to heart with her boss about what had been bothering her didn’t sound appealing in the moment. 

She sat down again after the trunk had departed. The feeling of hopelessness had lifted a little. But the reasons for her sadness had not left with the Porgebin. 

However, this time she did feel a bit angry. Desperate and deranged? Hannah was pushing the limit on how blameless she was in her own struggled relationship, not to mention what was appropriate to say to a colleague. 

And anyway it was Neville who pursued Celestina in the beginning. Bringing “surplus ingredients” to the dungeons after hours. Offering to help grade the stacks of exams. Complimenting her. Baking her an overdone dry cake for her birthday. Celestina rebuffed him for months, at first thinking he was just friendly, then that he was far too obvious. 

But then she remembered the first night they kissed, during yet another delivery of Mandrake roots that she already had heaps of. 

“Honestly, I believe your crossing a professional and ethical line, Professor Longbottom.”

He ran fingers through his mop of hair. “I think you’re right. I didn’t realize it for the first months or so, but now. I just like being around you, and-”

“You have a wife.”

“I do.” He said to her, with a tinge of guilt and turned away from her, but didn’t take the step to leave. 

“Well then, I insist you cease from flirting with me, and delivering me gifts, and well probably even speaking to me outside of a faculty setting.” She was using a stern voice she normally saved for the students. 

“Fine, but then you hafta stop too.” 

She opened her mouth, but no words came out. 

“If you wan’ me to go on pretendin’ like there’s nothing between us, like you don’ feel something too, then I will. But I know what I know.”

Celestina huffed in frustration, then protested again, “But you are married, and to another-“

“I know that. I can’t get away from it, Cellie. Hannah hasn’t said a kind word to me since we left the Leaky Caldron, so I donna feel bad about it.” Neville’s fists were clenched at his sides, and her gaze at her equally resentful and pained. 

Celestina didn’t respond, standing her ground behind her desk. It took everything in her to not reach for him in comfort. But before her will broke, he dropped his head, covering his eyes with his shaking hand, and said, “I’m sorry. Tha’s not your problem. I donna need to be putting tha on you.”

“I didn’t know it,” was all she could whisper. 

“No one does. Hannah’s much better at lying than I.” Neville’s shoulders slumped in defeat, “Yer right. And Imma leave you be, because well it’s not fair is it.”

Celestina nodded slowly, walking around her desk, thinking she would just open the door to her office, let him out and be done with it. It would be simple, and she could let these feelings go. 

Neville picked up the empty wooden crate he used to carry in the roots, following her to the door. Just as she put her hand on the knob, he looked up at her and said, “I just wan you to know, I was lonely fer years. Never thought to do anything about it. An’ there were women about, you know. I mean, just those stuck on who I am from the war an’ all. But I dinna think of it doing that to Hannah, no matter how much… I mean to say tha’ it was you. Not the loneliness. I couldna stop thinking about you since the first day of term. When you laughed at something Professor Barlow said. I couldna…” 

He looked down at the floor again, a bit of grey showing in his dark locks of thick hair, then he pinched his lips together as if thinking of the right words to say, and finished, “I dinna realize just how lonely I was until I met ya. A lonely I’ve had with me even before I met Hannah. So I just don’ wan’ ya to think that this was all… I dunno, meaningless I suppose.”

Celestina took her hand off the door and grasped the side of his face, bringing it down to hers. She couldn’t stop herself. The warmth that spread between them, then with their lips locked as they broached the barrier they had both been skirting for months, it turned into a quick fire, making the dungeon level office seem like a boiler. 

Neville may have chased her, but she finished the race. 

That night, and the handful of nights they had together after, were a reminder to both of them what it was like to feel loved again. All of their loses and injuries melted away in those flashes of time they had alone. If Celestina closed her eyes hard enough, she could imagine the feeling of long arms holding her, and hear the whisper of a compliment that made her blush. 

She knew the memory of him would fade over time, and be easier to lament over. For now, she just kept her eyes shut holding on to it for one more day. 

“Hello?”

She sat up to look at him, catching her breath in surprise that he was even there. As if she’d summoned an illusion from her own Pensieve. 

“Did it bite ya?” He was worried, and rushed to her. 

“No, I’m fine.” She said, her voice raspy from crying, hoping he didn’t notice. 

“I saw the trunk with yer note about the Porgebin go by. I followed the trace back here. I-… Yer not hurt then?” He looked her over. She hated that he was there to see her post-crying, dejected, and knowing that she was maybe attacked by a magical creature that went after pathetic people. 

“I said I’m fine. It was just a pest.” She stood up and brushed off her robes, facing away from him to hide her puffy face. 

“You look…” Neville stopped himself, then cleared his throat. “Well are you sure you’re ok?”

“I swear to Dumbledore, Neville, if you ask if me I’m ok one more time, I will send you in a trunk up to McGonegal.” She tried to storm past him out the door, ignoring his small laughter in response to her threat. She didn’t quite make it as he stepped to the side, standing in front of her, hands out to stop her, close enough that she could smell the earth from the greenhouses on him. 

“I’m sure you gave it a good whacking, I was just-“ He paused when she looked up at him, “You do look a bit terrible, actually.”

“If you don’t mind, I’m going to go look terrible somewhere away-“ And like everything else between them, her statement went unfinished. Neville kissed her, his body leaning into her, every ounce of his feelings draining into where they met at the lips. He pulled away briefly, holding both her shoulders and saying in a short breath, “I love you,” before kissing her again. 

With a motion of her hand, she waved the door behind him shut, the bolt locking them in. She’d hate for anyone to find them, especially once he slid a hand under her robes. 

Even through the tension and the rawness of her tear streaked face, she couldn’t help but collapse into him. She trusted him completely, beyond everything that should’ve caused doubt and regret, she believe deeply that he was a good man. He had sealed this feeling in for her by uttering what she felt about him. They hadn’t said “I love you” until this point. It wasn’t safe. But now she was repeating it over and over as he ran his hands all over her. 

The sounds of two hopeless lovers, familiar with one another and lost in only each other bounced off the old stone walls and evaporated into the still surface of the water. In the heat of it she didn’t think twice of his smile, or his words of happiness. She assumed it was just the moment. Another memory she would toil to shake off in the future, but craved it in the instance. 

They were bundled on the floor covered by her robes and his knit sweater. His feet were jutting out of the pile. 

“Glad I didn’t see any Porgebin bites on you. We’d have no way to treat you.” 

Celestina sat up and saw puzzled, “You-you didn’t go home for holiday?”

“No… you didn’t hear… this mornin’…”

“Obviously I didn’t, Neville.” She said, crossing her arms.

“Hannah quit this mornin’. Went home to her parents. She … well she told me, shit Celestina I was gonna tell ya, but I saw the Porgebin, and then well this,” he motioned to their pile of clothes. “She’s gone, Cellie. Left me for good.” 

“What!? I can’t beli- but what about the…” She had yet to say ‘baby’ out loud, and gulped on the idea. 

“You were a couple years back, so maybe you don’t remember our old mate, Ernie MacMillian. My year. A hufflepuff.” He sat up, the smile still stuck to his face.

“No…” She said, putting the pieces together. She did remember him, heard gossip about his quarrel with Harry Potter during the Tri-Wizard Tournament. He was in the web of names connected to Harry Potter, and Neville, of course. 

“They were close in school. And apparently when Hannah was tending the Caldron alone. And every weekend she’s been back to her Ma’s in Maigh’o.” He let out a sigh after recalling his wife’s admission. 

Celestina put her hand back in his, “Neville, I’m so sorry. That’s… awful.”

“What’s awful is how relieved I was to hear it,” he said, laughing a little, then twisting his face in guilt, “I wasn’ even angry. I think I hugged her while she was holdin’ her bags. But then I cried a bit, so I dunno really what’s goin on in my head.”

Celestina turned away from him. Both overjoyed by the news and totally uncertain to what this change would mean for her, she couldn’t think of what to say. Was it over between them now that circumstances had changed? That was ridiculous given he was there with her now, indecent on the cold floor of the Hogwarts Boathouse. 

Streaks of afternoon sun inched closer to the water’s edge. Celestina realized suddenly what had just happened there. At Hogwarts, the place of her childhood. Where the greatest wizards of their time had learned simple spells. Where history lived inside the walls and hallways and on every inch of the grounds. Where she met her husband. Where she had found a new path in life. Where this man who’d shaken her and taught her to love again, had lost and sacrificed so much. 

She felt little in the perceptive of the castle and everything it carried with it. And she felt safe. 

“Cellie?” His voice was gentle and careful. 

“Hm” She responded, turning around with a smile to match his own. 

“I’m starving.”

She laughed, as she would again with him many times. They gathered themselves and left for the Grand Hall, following the smell of Flaming Christmas Pudding.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you liked the story and want to hear it dramatically read aloud, check out our podcast, World Stealers, on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you choose to listen!
> 
> https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/worldstealers


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